Cameras

So....after a very hard life, my crappy (but trusty) Kodak point-and-shoot has died. The fine sands of the Anza Borrego Desert finally conquered her seemingly indestructible design, and I should hope we might all take a moment to recognize this great loss......

This being done I now have a wonderful excuse to purchase some fantastic piece of kit that I most likely can narrowly afford assuming I continue to live on PBJ and Ramen.

And so we arrive at the point.

I'm looking for something: shock, water, dust, sand, and idiot proof. Digital Zoom is useless, so I'm hoping for at least 12-15x optical Zoom, long battery life, light weight, tripod compatible, no more than $500....and if it could carry its self and take the picture for me we might really have something.

Look at Olympus. They have several styles and prices but all seem to be under 300.00 Canadian. They have several models that are water, shock, freeze and dust proof. I have a Stylus and like it very well. I don't think any are idiot proof so good luck there, I was hoping for the same but everyone else besides me wants complicated electronics! The one I have is not really hard to manage but has a lot of extras I will probably never ever use. Hope this helps.

Yes sand can destroy a camera in little time. My last 35 mm camera, a Olympus I had taken in the Grand Canyon on a three week hike was useless after one week, even tho I thought I had taken care to only change lenses and batteries inside my tent. I took it to a camera repair shop in Flagstaff and the guy said it had fine sand in it matrix. Cost to repair was more than the camera was worth.

After much researching a few years ago I settled on a Canon powershot S3, now replaced with the S5 I believe. Its not weather proof, but has stood the test of time on many hiking, camping and fishing trips. Takes amazing pictures and has many useful functions. Optical zoom is great, takes great video for a digital camera. I prefer the larger body cameras for the stability it provides in taking shots, or so it seems. I can't speak about the other cameras because I don't have experience with them. Try dpreview.com they have a great resource and review section.